


Connecting the Dots

by paradox_n_bedrock



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Case Fic, Conspiracy, Gen, Investigations, vague x-files parody vibes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25702582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradox_n_bedrock/pseuds/paradox_n_bedrock
Summary: An investigator's been hired to look into the recent disappearances in Greendale, and unfortunately, she might be open-minded enough to put some of the pieces together.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Connecting the Dots

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jyou_no_Sonoko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jyou_no_Sonoko/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, Ro! I was aiming for this to be longer, but I hope it still scratches the investigation!fic itch. Maybe I can add a second part someday. 
> 
> Thanks to muscatmusic18 for a lightning-fast round of beta-ing.

Lane drummed her pen on the large wooden desk and stared up at the photos on the whiteboard. There was something off about the case. Cases, according to the police. As usual, their local law enforcement wasn’t quite putting the pieces together. Although, to be fair, neither was she. 

Five men -- boys, some of them -- missing. Three from Greendale, one from across Sweetwater River, and one from downstate. She snatched a yellow notepad from amid the pile of files -- questionably acquired copies from contacts within the department -- before sprawling back in her rolling chair. 

Ben Button, the boy missing from Riverdale hardly stood out among the town’s sky-high murder rate, but it remained seemingly unconnected to gang violence, or the Farm’s cult, or even another serial killer plaguing their side of the river. And, most interestingly, he had recently started working at a pizza parlor in Greendale as a delivery boy. His parents had said he had gone to work the evening he disappeared, but there was no record -- or memory -- of the boy being at work that night. And it was his parents that were paying her fees, so his disappearance should be her first priority. Theoretically.

In reality, she’d probably be staring at these casefiles whether she was being paid or not. It was too much of a puzzle to ignore. Among all the _strange_ happenings in Greendale, outright disappearances were rare. There was typically a body and a cause of death, whether it was a murder, a suicide, or a heart attack in a perfectly healthy 20-something. One Conner Kemper’s picture was up on her board, as well. Stabbed to death and no perpetrator caught. His parents had killed themselves shortly afterward. But his picture sat just off to the side from the others, of interest to her but not officially part of the case, for the difference of the body laying six feet deep in Greendale Cemetery. She supposed he could have been the first, the killer having not yet perfected their method of disposal. It was truly a tragedy that she didn’t have the resources to get a body exhumed, but that was a problem for another day.

Steve Loomis had been the second to go missing, just before the tornado that had swept through Greendale, and there were few isolated leads in his case. A football player at Baxter High, with very average grades and an unremarkable social life. No drug use of note, no new friends, a few detentions for bullying and unruly behavior during class, but nothing that stood out. 

George Hawthorne was the next, within days of Loomis, and his disappearance was all the more notable for the fact that he was a middle-aged man with a stable job as a principal, the type more likely to buy an expensive, flashy car and pursue a woman much too good for him for his midlife crisis than pick up and leave without a forwarding address. In fact, there had been one complaint filed against him for harassment a few years ago. Predictably, nothing had come of it and it was the secretary who filed it that had been transferred to another school. She made a note to interview her, as well as the current office staff.

Perhaps the rash of deaths surrounding Gryphons & Gargoyles (not that the town’s police force bought her theory about that, either) was reaching Greendale. Ben Button had played the game, had very nearly been one of the suicides resulting from it. Would he really continue? Even spread the game to a new school? 

A popular football player didn’t seem like the most likely person to get involved in such a thing, but the mystery of the game had been known to draw in people well outside of it’s expected audience.

 _No._ She shook her head, dismissing the line of thought. While school staff -- also a principal -- had once been involved in Riverdale, there had been no books or paraphernalia associated with the game found here. No whispers of a “Gargoyle King” had reached her ears. It seemed unlikely that remaining players would suddenly start disposing of bodies, and it still left two disappearances unaccounted for.

She pushed up from the chair and rifled through files until she found the right one, pulling another photo from its contents. Lane crossed the room, to the rightmost corner of the board. She held the picture up and dropped a magnet on it with a satisfying click. A new addition to the investigation, brand-new, in fact, based on his last known location being a rest stop just outside of town. Daniel Mitchell had been traveling back from visiting his brother in Maine, and it had taken weeks for anyone to notice he never made it, his landlord the one who filed the report when rent was overdue. A loner, with a line job that had replaced him without question and several domestic violence charges on his record. But his ex-wife lived in Montana, now, running a horse farm, and her time was well accounted for. The police didn’t consider her a suspect and that was one area where Lane was happy to agree with them.

She would freely admit that it was a hunch that included Mitchell in her investigation, as he remained unconnected to the other victims, or even concretely to having been within Greendale’s borders, _yet_. She backtracked, scrawling “BHS” under two of the names, then adding "bully", "harasser", and "violent" in the relevant spots, until she came back to the one remaining, eyes not quite focusing on the man’s cheery visage.

There was a single solid connection between Steve Loomis, George Hawthorne, and this doctor, Adam Masters. And that connection was a Baxter High teacher. She had Loomis as a student, Hawthorne as a boss, and, most interestingly, Adam Masters had been her fiance. They’d been together for three years, though he’d been out of the country for most of it, and then he had gone missing shortly after returning to Greendale in February. 

She tapped Mary Wardwell's image with her marker, just below Mr. Masters, the modest sweater and crooked half-grin in the school photo so different than the _very_ femme fatale that she had seen around town the last few months. Wardwell had been in Greendale her whole life, had been working at the same school for thirty years, the only major changes an occasional switch between grade levels or the subjects she was certified in. Significant others were few and far between, but the relationships tended to last and the rest all seemed to be alive and well.

On paper, she was nothing if not stable. Until now. Word was that the woman had stepped down from her recently appointed principalship and was taking a leave of absence from school entirely.

Of course, it _could_ just be the stress of her missing fiancé, and a job that had turned out to be overwhelming in the midst of that grief.

It could be, but it wasn't. Lane would bet her PI license on it: there was something else going on with Mary Wardwell.

Standing back, Lane ran a hand through her short hair as she contemplated her next steps. It was going on three o’clock, a perfect time to head to the school and get some additional background. She pulled open her desk drawer, grabbing her keys and her gun, though it’d have to stay in the car when she went into the school. Lane looked back at the blue eyes, piercing and bright even in a picture. She needed more information before she headed anywhere near that isolated cottage in the woods, but she oddly looked forward to coming face-to-face with the woman. She seemed as much of a mystery as the case itself.


End file.
